Nigerian Revolution :A Possibility or a Mirage (Part 6) —By Awesomeness Esuabana

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29 July 2019 
In my post "THE DECAYED STATE OF NIGERIA", I wrote about the state of Nigeria and why it should undergo a revolution.
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In part 1 of the series "NIGERIAN REVOLUTION: A POSSIBILITY OR A MIRAGE" , I wrote further on the need for a revolution and ended with a question "why has Nigeria not undergone a revolution despite the obvious revolutionary situations on ground " .
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In part 2-5 I answered that question using 4 factors which I considered to be inhibitors to a Nigerian Social Revolution. They are (but not limited to) Leadership , Followership , Ideology and Ethnic/Religious Loyalty .
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Writing this series was first born out of anger but then, it has been a learning curve for me.
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I'll conclude this series by saying that a revolution needs to be a well executed united project. It also needs a degree of political sophistication. The Arab spring only managed to achieve an incomplete revolution(incomplete because the changes it brought did not last) so one must not expect what happened in Tunisia, or Egypt to occur here in Nigeria or else what happened in Libya will be our fate. Any ill-planned revolution in Nigeria would only reshuffle the old clique, thieves and crooks back into power
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Revolutions run the risk of swallowing its initiators. Over and above that, violence has the potential of being non-discriminatory. It most times engenders an amorphous and non-selective destruction of both the guilty and the innocent. It is difficult in a revolutionary atmosphere to distinguish between the targeted and the collateral damages.
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Secondly, revolutions are 'blind' . They cannot visualize the end of their quests. Once the process is set in motion, the end is difficult to foresee and control. This renders it susceptible to being hijacked by non-revolutionary elements and opportunists, who neither had a vision nor agree with the visions of the revolution. To this end, a revolution’s end cannot be foreseen, predicted, or planned. In this light, revolutions run the risk of being "bloodletting orgies, full of sound and fury; achieving nothing" .-Anonymous. 
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The greed amongst political holders in Nigeria and Nigerians in their entirety will never let that happen. Whenever the oppressed raise their voices to protest their sentence to victimhood; they are either whipped into silence like Biafra was, or bribed into moral drowsiness like the chiefs of the Niger Delta. All in all, no one is expected to disturb the status quo and any attempt at redrafting our social contract will be rebuffed even by fellow victims. 
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Further more, a revolution in a country like Nigeria with diverse ethnic groups and multiple loyalties, a violent revolution may do us no good. Maybe, just maybe as Ekam Stephen Magor suggested, "we can hope for an intellectual revolution, like that during the 'MEIJI REVOLUTION in 19th century JAPAN', which spurred the very developmental strides Japan pilots on currently. This is possible!".
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Ibitoye Daniel Olukosi also averred that "What is viable is a mind revolution. If we get it right here, inadvertently, a social revolution will occur" .
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A revolution that will engage the minds of Nigeria towards critical thinking. A revolution that will instead build the confidence of Nigerians. A revolution that will build the values necessary for the development of our society. A revolution through our educational system that transcend “Mungo Park discovered the river Niger” is a viable revolution and if adhered to will give us the change we desire.
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I remain your favorite SHOE MAKER GIRL. Don't forget to place your order for any kind of shoe.
Awesomeness Esuabana writes from Calabar, Nigeria